#pro wesley wyndam-pryce

[dvaderstark]

Brief defense of Wesley in "Billy"

I think that Wesley gets too much hate in this episode. First I happen to look at the idea of Billy awakening an ancient primordial misogyny that exists in every man to be ridiculous. I do subscribe to the idea that it's basically mind control and the reason why Angel was not affected by it is because he's a fellow demon. The points that some fans seem to get on Wesley for are that he falls victim to the control too early and that Fred shouldn't have to comfort him at the end it should be the other way around.

Regarding the first point by all accounts, it took a very long time for Wesley to be consumed by the same outward violence towards women that every other guy taken by Billy's control does. Since they had to walk to the drive to the area of the crime and he touched the sample there, I would say he and Fred probably walked back in say 15-20 minutes. Then it takes more time for them to use their microscopes and such to discover the elements of Billy's blood and while at that point Wesley begins acting more odd the violent streak doesn't come through for a while. By all accounts it took more than a half hour for Wesley to be fully taken over. For contrast Gunn who I am not bashing at all here seemed to fall faster in quicker time and it was only Fred explaining to him what happened and realizing it would have happened to him too that lead to him asking her to knock him out and the misogyny was showing there too much more outwardly violent than Wesley as well. I mentioned that not to bash but to show that Wesley had more resistance than even Gunn who is a very strong person. Meanwhile with Wesley by the time Fred realizes what has happened he's too far gone for it to make a difference. So I don't think Wesley deserves any real flack for this.

Regarding the point of Fred comforting Wesley near the end. I do get why that feels odd to people but Wesley himself shows the appropriate amount of guilt and sorrow for what he was forced to do and Fred understands it wasn't really him. I wouldn't be shocked that the real reason why Fred seemed so unaffected is that 5 years in Pylea leaves her somewhat desensitized to this stuff.

[greenapplespider]

More Wes- the only reason he didn’t fuck off back to England in season four is because he loves the second amendment

[kyliafanfiction-archive]

Wesley made a misjudgement based on years of training and false assumptions and took Faith away from Angel when he was getting through to her. Mistake on his part. Big one.

Faith tied Wesley to a chair and had every intention of torturing him for potentially hours, deliberately doing everything she could to stretch the pain out as much as possible. 

I think they’re even, to say the least.

Faithsley has a fuckload of problems, which is what makes it an interesting ship, because the most important thing about a ship is that there is an interesting story in it. But the reasons it’s problematic go well beyond Wesley making his mistake in Consequences. And are on both sides of the fence.

I ship Faithsley because I love the dynamic between the characters, because of the way they start to mirror eachother in AtS S4, in reverse directions in their own journey. Because they’ve both wronged eachother and are both morally dirtier than most of the characters around them, which allows for that greyspace shipping I love so much.

I ship Faithsley because there is something beautiful in the idea and potential story of two fucked up people with fucked up lives and a fucked up past between each other finding meaning and happiness in the other. I ship Faithsley because any story that involves them falling in love with each other is going to be fascinating. 

I ship Faithsley because I love the dynamic and the story presented therein, and really, that’s all I need. 

[kyliafanfiction]

neolithicdyke(.)tumblr(.)com/post/183783991391/faith-tortures-wesley-me No one seems to want to address the misandry in the BtVS fandom but there are many vocal bigots in the tag. Thanks, Kylia

You know, when I saw the URL, my first response was to groan and go ‘oh god’. You’re better off blocking that… unfortunate individual rather than seeing her in the tag. She’s just one of the shitty, shitty people in the fandom. (and I say this aware that it’s possible others thing I’m one of the shitty shitty people in the fandom, though really… yeah she’s worse.)

Now, she doesn’t really express anything I can really go after, apart from missing the whole point of Faith’s character and arc (the whole redemption thing), since she’s praising one of Faith’s sins, and that’s pretty freakish too, to be very much pro-torture like that. even of someone she doesn’t like. That’s a dangerous position to hold, even in fiction. 

Now, of course, opinions about fictional characters don’t actual mean anything about the person holding the opion, per se, but if shipping Faithsley makes us freaks, her love of torture makes her one too. :P

Now, since she didn’t tag her hate with the ship or with Wesley, I’m not interested in coming into her house directly and hating on her - my philosophy has been that I don’t seek out hate for my fave characters or ships.

If someone comes into my askbox and hates on my faves or they don’t hate their hate right and I don’t see their post reblogged by someone I follow, I’m not going to directly go at them, as a rule. It’s just basic sense - why seek out posts hating on the characters you love? (I mean, I do do it occasionally when I first decide I like a character to know what the haters think out of curiosity, but as long as they tagged their hate right, again, not gonna come at them - not when I make such a big deal about tagging your hate).

All that said, the post is pretty weaksauce hate, and of course, nonsense. I mean, there’s a lot to find fucked up in Faithsley, and that’s one of the reasons I love me some Faithsley, all that fun fucked-uped-ness, but you would think that the hate would be coming from the side of the victim. I mean, that is how it usually works, in modern fandom, if you ship someone with someone that hurt them in some fashion. You would think that Wesley fans would be the one screeching about how dare anyone ship him with his abuser (not that she ‘abused’ him because that’s not how the word works, but she did torture him)

(see Reylo haters, Dramione haters, Skyeward haters, etc).

As I’ve said before, were it Finn Lehane torturing Waverly Wyndam-Pryce, then anyone who shipped Finnverly would be having haters crawling up their ass so fast you’d think they were getting a colonoscopy at the hands of spiders. (I’m not sure that metaphor works, but I’m finding it too funny, in a body-horrors sort of way). It would be a massively shat upon ship. You’d have ‘Waverly Defenders’ determined to protect their fave from Finnverly fans and saying ‘you defend rape!’ if Finn even makes one comment about finding Waverly attractive, ever (Faith does make a comment positive towards Wesley’s appearance, when he first shows up in Prison in 4x13, ftr, so presumably Finn would do such towards Waverly in bizzaro-land BtVS)

Not that Finnverly would deserve hate, from either end - it wouldn’t - but we would be seeing the same pattern we usually see - antis screaming at ‘Abusive ships.’

Of course, fandom doesn’t really care about men being abused in an M/F ship, not here on tumblr, so they wouldn’t care about this one anyway. Antis in M/M fandoms will scream about this granted (see: all the Killing Stalking Discourse I can’t escape, and I hate that I even know the name of that manga offhand. Isn’t the name of the ship Sangbum or something, Christ, why do I know that? Ugh), but you don’t tend to see people - not the screechy anti types, anyway - running to the defense of a victimized male when a woman is doing the hurting.

You know, that’s all ‘YAAASSS QUEEN’ time.

The thing I find fascinating about that post, specifically - and other pro-Faith torturing Wesley posts (because I’ve seen several over the years) is that they break the pattern of Faith stans. 

Faith stans (that is, the hardcore ‘she did nothing wrong!’ fans) are usually busy infantilizing Faith and saying that it’s everyone else’s fault for failing her that she did all those bad things (and while I agree Giles, as the Adult™ in the room should have noticed something, it’s asking a lot of Buffy for her to have somehow magically saved her. Same with Willow, Xander, Oz or Cordelia), because god forbid she have any culpability for her own actions.

OR they tend to sweep Faith’s sins under the rug and just… don’t talk about them, and just say ‘XANDER WAS WORSE THAN FAITH BECAUSE REASONS’ , because y’know, murders didn’t happen. (Not to say one might not like Faith more than Xander, that’s valid and fine, but still, man murder’s bad, right?)

The thing about posts like that one is not only is it acknowledging that Faith did a bad thing but it revels and embraces it - and doesn’t try to say it’s Wesley’s fault he’s being tortured. Which… is odd, since Faith Stans usually like to protect their uwu precious baby from charges of her sins.

The only way that post fits the pattern is if the poster of such posts thinks that torture is okay if done to the ‘right’ people.

And that’s fucked up.

Like, one can like a scene where a character is tortured because it provides emotional catharsis or because it’s a compelling scene in a book/game/movie/show/etc, because it reveals interesting details about the characters involved, because they find the visual/written depiction of torture appealing, etc. That last one is a bit odd, but ultimately no more likely to lead to being pro-torture than reading non-con fics or having the occasional rape fantasy is to lead to someone wanting rape/be raped. (though I know Antis will disagree with all of this… I wonder if the OP of that post plans to actually torture people)

But, if one genuinely holds the belief that it’s okay to torture someone if it’s the ‘right’ (that is, correct) someone… I mean, you should probably run from that someone. Not sure if that’s what the OP is saying, but kinda looks like it. and certainly, by her own logic - if we Faithsley shippers are freaks for shipping it, she’s a torture-apologist for loving that scene the way she claims to.

And later-season Faith, or even the Faith of the next episode would be ashamed of any ‘fan’ of hers that praised her for her crimes, any of them. And frankly, knowing that is the best way to make yourself feel better upon seeing a post like that.

Knowing that Faith would not be happy with that person at all.

Really makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?

[greenapplespider]

Some Wesley cause I finally got around to reading the Angel comic, after several decades of indecision, and it really sucked - they really did my boy Wes dirty 😔